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Topic: Puma Punku (Read 20942 times)

Watched a 2 hour show about so-called ancient astronauts on the History channel last night. No - I do not believe we were visited by "ancient astronauts". However, I saw some artifacts I had not heard about before, from a location in South America called Puma Punku.

Wow.

One of the archaeologists said Puma Punku makes the Great Pyramid look like child's play. The engineering and block machining blew me away. Apparently nobody knows how they could have done the carvings and machining. We're not just talking about cutting a big block with smooth sides (as if that was easy). These blocks have perfectly straight grooves and deeply cut complex patterns that look like a machine tool cut them. The stone they used is granite and diorite. The only thing harder than diorite is diamond. Also, the blocks are engineered to fit together to make buildings - so they have to be all the same size - like Legos. Not much really amazes me these days, but these blocks do. How could they have done this work?

This is sort of a nitpick, but it's not true that only diamond is harder than diorite. Diorite is composed mainly of plagioclase feldspar (about 6 Mohs hardness) and hornblende (5 to 6 Mohs hardness). For reference, Quartz has a Mohs hardness of 7, and Diamond has a hardness of 10.

This doesn't really detract from the impact of your post, but I just thought I'd clear that up.

This is sort of a nitpick, but it's not true that only diamond is harder than diorite.

I was going by what one of the speakers said. Anyway, making those kind of straight deep recessed patterns in most any kind of hard stone is damn hard to do even if you have a machine tool. Any ideas on how they could have done it?

Az's post is illuminating. Did they say what metals were available? Because, that line (as impressive as it is, and it really is a good line) could have been made with a tensioned saw. Even if it dulled constantly during the work, it could have been resharpened repeatedly. They could have made wooden straightedges and right-angles.

If ancient japanese could make some of the finest swords in the world and armor that is beautiful and perfect (with hammers, tongs, paintbrushes, and fire as their main tools), these people could have made straightedges and band hand-saws.

Plus, there are no straight lines. It's one thing to chisel curves that don't have to be exactly straight - you can compensate for any deviation as you go in the art. You cannot compensate the straight line or edge if it deviates due to inaccurate chiseling. You have to understand the difference between carving art and machining straight lines and recesses. You can't compare them directly.

Now you're losing your sense of humor. Please don't do that. All the fun drips out of the bottom onto your clothes when you do that.

You can compare them directly because of this: they are both solid blocks of deeply incised, load-bearing stone. But, let's look at the evidence: the stone was strong enough to weather storms, solid enough to keep its own weight up this long, yet has deeply etched grooves that are very neatly traced. They needed chisels to do that work, even if they had to import them from another locale, period. They needed straight edges, and knowledge of geometry to fashion joining edges. They needed knowledgible quarriers and stone masons.

You use a plumb line, chalk, a straightedge, and a knife to accurately cut a piece of drywall. Guess what? The technique is not so different for stone... just a lot more time and trained skill is needed for the task.

And the stone might be very, very hard. Their chisels were obviously a lot harder. I'm not saying it wasn't hard to do, requiring tons of effort. And, it is very impressive, especially since the Wiki entry states that they had no known written language... all of that know-how had to be transmitted by word of mouth by keepers of the craft. Which also means that their society was very complex, and could support that kind of luxury.

You really have to wonder about ancient cultures. Not only why they did what they did but how. Where did these people learn skills to built like they did? It would be great to discover some records the church did not get to to burn.

Then don't trivialize my serious post with suggestions that aliens did it. Is that too much to ask?

But you are trivializing the accomplishment Jim. If the experts haven't figured it out then I'm sure you haven't done so in these brief few minutes. But if you have, I encourage you to submit your ideas to an archaeological journal for publication.

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The processes and technologies involved in the creation of these temples are still not fully understood by modern scholars. Our current ideas of the Tiwanaku culture hold that they had no writing system and also that the invention of the wheel was most likely unknown to them. The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple's discovery.

It is highly unlikely that any of the stones in Puma Punku were cut using ancient stone cutting techniques, at least not those that we are aware of.

The stones in Puma Punku are made up of granite, and diorite, and the only stone that is harder that those two, is the diamond. If the people who built this place cut these stones using stone cutting techniques, then they would had to have used diamond tools.

If they didn't use diamonds to cut these stones, then what did they use?

You dont mass produce exact blocks with complex deep straight recesses using a bunch of chiseling. Remember - it's not art where you can compensate for slight mistakes. That's what you have to get into your head, along with the type of stone used.

Then don't trivialize my serious post with suggestions that aliens did it. Is that too much to ask?

I was trivializing the tendency of "sciency" shows to promote crappy theory. Anything for ratings. I was not trivializing you, or your post. Sorry if it came out that way.

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But you are trivializing the accomplishment Jim. If the experts haven't figured it out then I'm sure you haven't done so in these brief few minutes. But if you have, I encourage you to submit your ideas to an archaeological journal for publication.

As I stated above, the accomplishment is impressive. I am not disputing that the work is magnificent, and the original structure was probably awesome. I am not disputing that the cuts are exacting.

I dispute that the cutting techniques were beyond the ken of ancient people.

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It is highly unlikely that any of the stones in Puma Punku were cut using ancient stone cutting techniques, at least not those that we are aware of.

They were ancient people, using, by definition, ancient techniques. This line was written by the author to induce a gee-whiz reaction. These people may have used different techniques than their neighbors or those who came after them, and they did something fantastic, but most stone cutting techniques are, in fact, extremely ancient. Nothing much has changed in terms of the actual cutting of the rock -- there has been more change in regard to managing leverage, transport, and the power of the tools being used. The actual cutting-edge-on-stone is very old, and has history in different parts of the world.

To make a clean edge, one scrapes a line with a guide. The deeper the better. Along the side of that guide line, use careful chiseling-out of the framed space, which very dependent on the quality of stone, above all else, if the stone is to bear a load. One crack running through the block will not only ruin its looks, but will also weaken it. (Skilled quarrying is a must.) Check your work with a straight edge and ruler often. Polishing, first with a toothed chisel, then with a flat chisel. Scraping techniques with other tools exist as well.

Do I know the details of how they worked? No. Their tools were probably as unique looking as their structure, but just as likely, recognizable for their functionality. It undoubtedly took a lot of people and man-hours. And, if Az's comments on the hardness of the stone is correct, they didn't need diamond edges. They just needed large quantities of harder material than the stone, which, they could continually touch up or replace. Otherwise, they just needed lots of it. It doesn't need to be efficient, just effective.

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The processes and technologies involved in the creation of these temples are still not fully understood by modern scholars. Our current ideas of the Tiwanaku culture hold that they had no writing system and also that the invention of the wheel was most likely unknown to them. The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple's discovery.

This para seems to be very honestly written. This is how I would expect that the techniques would be referred to [based on our prior assumptions about the people, the techniques are surprising. We must raise our expectations of their technology level]. That's responsible writing.

So, other further reading shows that the egyptians also carved red granite, which is extremely hard. Emery was used for that stone, as Az mentioned, corundum. This item has a reference to a compound tool of corundum set in bronze (center column, top.)

The same idea sometimes sprouts up in different places. It would not be surprising if the Tiwanaku came up with similar methods to the Egyptians to accomplish the same task.

Unfortunately, the popular press would rather trivialize their accomplishments, rather than explore how fantastically similar their techniques must have been to others almost half a world away. How, in isolation, they found a way to do something remarkably exacting and difficult to do.

I dispute that the cutting techniques were beyond the ken of ancient people.

Of course the techniques weren't beyond them. They did it. The stones are there. But IHMO you are trivializing the the difficulty of achieving the quality and precision required, and some of the cutouts are just damn hard to do with a modern machine tool. As I have read, it remains a mystery that archaeologists haven't figured out. I don't think you or I are cleverer and more learned in archaeology than the professors who haven't found an answer to this.

I don't usually post videos but if you watch this video you can view some of the exacting surfaces and recesses in the granite and diorite stones. Just saying something along the lines of "Oh, grab some chisels and scrapers and start pounding away till it's all smooth and straight" sounds good, but it's more complicated than that. It's an order of magnitude harder than those methods would require. The reason I say that is because it's interlocking identical parts, and with straight edges and lines into the material. That's where it gets very, very difficult. Get a block of granite, take it to your backyard with modern chisels and a good hammer, and make yourself a hole of any size or shape in it. Make a rough crappy hole. See how hard that is, just to pound out a crappy rough hole. Now I want you to make a perfect square hole with perfectly smooth sides and a perfectly smooth bottom. Make the corners and angles without any cracks or chips. You are a 21st century person with knowledge of all types of things they would have never known about. Can you make that square hole? Get back to me on that assignment.

Cutting off a piece straight or cutting a granite or diorite block in half with a straight edge is one thing (as if that's easy), but doing it into the piece is quite another thing. Again, it's not art where you can work around errors and compensate taking off to much by adjusting the artwork, and it ain't limestone or a soft stone. A straight edge is either straight or it isn't. A deep flat surface into a piece is either flat or it isn't. You don't work for two weeks on a stone like those and go tell your boss you chiseled out too much diorite and you need a new 200 ton block. They must have had a system of exacting "machine" tools devised, something which we haven't figured out yet. There are other videos, some with the ancient alien whackos talking, but if you just ignore their claims of ancient aliens and look at the objective evidence, you will see the difficulty of achieving these designs. Chisels and scrapers? I don't think so.

I would like to add that chisel-sculpted rock is almost never (I would say never, but obviously I don't know of all sculptures) made of a hard, phaneritic igneous rock like granite or diorite. The large crystals in the rock will tend to cleave from each other rather than be cleaved in two. This makes them very difficult to chisel into straight (or even curved) and keep a reasonably smooth surface, since crystals will tend to pop out here and there under the force of the chisel, in unpredictable ways. Only a tool that can reliably cut through the crystals themselves can cut smoothly.

This is why most sculptures are made of a relatively soft rock, like marble.

I would like to add that chisel-sculpted rock is almost never (I would say never, but obviously I don't know of all sculptures) made of a hard, phaneritic igneous rock like granite or diorite. The large crystals in the rock will tend to cleave from each other rather than be cleaved in two.

Right. If you work with the material and chisel it, you will understand that you can make certain rough holes with that chisel, but if you want to get to a final perfectly flat surface, you would have to stop far enough before you got to the final surface to avoid any large cracks or chips to spoil it. Then to get to the final surface you would have to somehow grind it down with a tool. Now, grinding an outside surface that has no edge to block your grinder is one thing. You can get out beyond the edge and get it all ground down flat. It may take you a very long time to grind granite, but you can grind away to your heart's content until it's done.

Now, turn your mind to the inside flat surfaces you have to make, like the one in the picture below. Think about chiseling out a rough opening and not making a mistake, and then grinding inside surfaces flat and the inside corners flat and clean. Man, you are talking major work, and in addition, how many people can even work on the smaller cutouts at a time? One person at a time? This is completely different from cutting and scraping limestone. It ain't even in the same category of difficulty.

If you have a cutting machine tool, then your problem is solved. You just cut where you want and the end result is flat.

Sadly the records of *how* they did such things is sparse or non-existent.

As an excercise though, use your engineering background and try to think of a way that you would design these blocks if you were transported back in time and told to do it or die horribly, and then given unlimited resources.

I can speculate that personally the idea of modular peices makes more sense as they can all be constructed using jigs and measurements at the quarry and the damaged peices recut for smaller areas, another advantage of using jigs and assembly rigs is that you don't need super talented people, just people who are really good at following directions. Obviously they had some kind of tooling, since they were able to drill holes.

Did they do it that way? No idea, that's just what I'd do. I do know that having an obviously skilled team of architechts and engineers is essential for what they did, along with most likely a massive work force. If you look at the quarries where it looks like they made these stones, you can see many that are damaged, so it's possible that when a mistake was made on one, or it broke during construction they just made another one. (I'd hate to be the one telling the boss about it though!)

In assembling the walls of Pumapunku, each stone was finely cut to interlock with the surrounding stones and the blocks fit together like a puzzle, forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. One common engineering technique involves cutting the top of the lower stone at a certain angle, and placing another stone on top of it which was cut at the same angle.[3] The precision with which these angles have been utilized to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry..[5] Many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones.[9] Much of the masonry is characterized by accurately cut rectilinear blocks of such uniformity that they could be interchanged for one another while maintaining a level surface and even joints. The blocks were so precisely cut as to suggest the possibility of prefabrication and mass production, technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku’s Incan successors hundreds of years later.[8] Tiwanaku engineers were also adept at developing a civic infrastructure at this complex, constructing functional irrigation systems, hydraulic mechanisms, and waterproof sewage lines.

Talking with my wife about the region, she tends to point out that the Central and South American cultures were highly advanced, but largely hampered by the lack of surrounding cultures and trade. Not having the wheel, or horses, or even adequate ocean vessels really left them on their own. Unfortunately they never really got off the ground and expanded the way the middle eastern societies did.

There is no doubt that they had some advanced concepts culturally, aqueducts, irrigation, and obviously stoneworking. However they did it, it was lasting, and impressive.

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I love the history channel watched the puma punku alien show last night, fell asleep to a show about the bermuda triangle, and woke up to people trying to find warewolves. the amazing thing is in middle school they used to tell us to do reports on anything we wanted and i would pick topics like this and then get in trouble for it. I wonder how my old teachers feel about the history channel now a days?

Compare and contrast this article with the possible tools the Aymara indians could have made 14,000 years ago.

How do granite carving techniques differ from softer stones?

"The one main difference between marble and granite is mineral hardness,as you probably know. Since granite has quartz in its matrix, steelwon't scratch or cut it. Secondly, granite granularity is differentfrom marble because of the combination of quartz, feldspar, and micawhich seems to create little nodules. So, some of the operations youare used to won't work on granite.

...

Then you try a diamond saw blade which will be pretty similar betweenthe two. Both are pretty tough material. You knock off fins betweenparallel cuts the same in both materials. But don't bother withnon-diamond blades in granite because the quartz will destroy the sawblade. And don't bother with bonded diamond blades (made for softstone). Granite will eat them for lunch. You must use sintered diamondblades.

...

Then you try the point chisel. Quickly you learn that pointing ingranite is at best a limited operation. With marble, the point actuallycuts into the marble. In granite, the point just knocks some surfacematerial loose and quickly wears a steel point out. So, you try acarbide tipped chisel on the granite. Now the point lasts much longer,but you have to work hard to make very deep chisel marks. And when youtry to create a long groove with the point, you find it won't gostraight, but glances off side to side. That's when you discovergranite has a lot of structure, like little nodules that deflect yourpoint off to the side one time or pop out cavities another time.

...

Now you realize, on no!, another expensive tool I got to have, a diegrinder with sintered diamond grinding points. Yikes! this is gettingto be an expensive operation. But, if you want fine detail in granite,you are going to have to grind it in. Well, actually, small very sharpchisels may work for you, if you are determined, methodical, andpatient and don't have to work interior spaces in the stone.

...

Matrix toughness is similar between marble and granite. Some of each issoft and some is very hard. Mineral hardness is much, much, greater ingranite, and the quartz in granite will wear steel tools out veryquickly.Sintered diamond saws and grinding wheels are your main tools.You won't use chisels nearly as much, but carbide tipped chisels areworth their cost and don't forget to get a couple of good pitchingchisels."

Some of the references that I had in my last post made it apparent that using corundum tipped chisels -- as the Egyptians had done -- makes it possible to chisel the red granite that the Egyptians used. And, in fact, many commercially available granite chisels today are similarly carbide-tipped, not diamond tipped. Carbide and corundum are of equal hardness (though modern carbide is more durable), and both are harder than granite.

No other culture ever made alloys that could do the job? There are no precedents in human history?

Jim, how do you cut this block as it is with a saw or chisels?

One of these statues could weigh as much as 50 tons. The people on Easter Island constructed dozens of them. How?

With hard work, sweat, and elbow grease. Ancient peoples worked on their stone monuments for 16 hours a day, year in, year out. Even if it meant continually hitting a big rock with lots of little ones eventually they would get whatever it was they were trying to build.

« Last Edit: March 08, 2010, 12:05:57 PM by Frank »

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With hard work, sweat, and elbow grease. Ancient peoples worked on their stone monuments for 16 hours a day, year in, year out. Even if it meant continually hitting a big rock with lots of little ones eventually they would get whatever it was they were trying to build.

The problem being presented isn't getting through to some of you.

You are comparing apples and oranges Frank. Carving art and lifting them upright is hard, but it's not even in the same category or magnitude of difficulty as producing engineered blocks with straight lines, inside flat smooth surfaces, and interlocking parts. What happens if you make a mistake in the art? You just make the eye a little bigger or the nose a little smaller. Are those statues exactly identical? No. If the eyes aren't the same size, does it matter? No. Those statues are just rough stone carving art. Hell, I could make one of those if I had enough time, because it's rough, basic, freehand art. No way could I make those blocks, because I don't have a clue how to manufacture the straight lines and inside flat surfaces with stone age tools on granite or diorite. Apparently neither do you.

If the Chief wants a bowl shape in a granite block to drain blood into, you just make it a useful size. If it turns out a little bigger or smaller or not quite round, it doesn't matter. You are just glancing over the magnitude of difficulty of making the Puma Punku engineered blocks, as I suspected you would. You aren't considering the materials in question with respect to the requirements that they must be manufactured to. Can you do anything to contribute an answer to this issue other than just saying "Oh, they just busted their asses for a long time with a hammer or something until it looked like what they wanted." That isn't an explanation, it's just a lazy answer.